Hi guys / Moto 360

Hi guys.

Yeah, it's been a while since I posted, work and home life kept me busy.

So I'll see if I can start this up again.

Moto 360:

Love this watch, wear it everyday and since the new update, the interface has certainly improved. The main new feature I enjoy is drawing an emoji. It allows me to quickly reply to texts with an emotion :P

Friend: "So I'll be round in about 10 minutes, shall I pick up some food"
Me: :) :) :) :)

I know some people are still on the fence with smart watches. "Why have a smart watch when most thing you need you'll have to take your phone out.

Well to them I say. Yes I can use my phone to reply to messages / calls / and most other things. But what I love about the smart watch is, I can quickly see my notifications and get a quick description/text.

I can also control my music via the watch, which to me is handy.

But most of all, the watches true potential comes when you download an app called "AutoWear".

I could go on about how great AutoWear, but that's for a different post.

In summary, I love this watch, and the fact its cheaper to get now only means i encourage you to get it even more.



P.S

Assuming you've read this, I would love your opinion on topics, ideas or any suggestions you'd like me to talk about.

I will try to make this at least a weekly thing.

Thanks...

Hey guys

Now I know I haven't posted in a while, quite a while in fact.

To those who don't know, recently got a new job which had kept me busy.
Plus side is my coding is getting better.

I'll be redoing Alice from scratch with a new interface.

But I've decided, what kept me posting really is because I haven't done much progress on it.

So not only will I be posting details about Alice. I'll be posting about any technological news, such as my opinions on new and old tech, as well as coding or scripting stuff, like any applications I make and Tasker profiles.

Like for starters, I have a moto 360, I could document my views on it, especially the release, sorry... The pre-orders of the Apple watch, considering some deliveries won't start till August.

So I'll try to work out a schedule which will won't affect home and work life. Luckily my work place is very relaxed so I could work on this there.

So apologies for those who wanted more posts recently.

Hopefully I'll see you soon

Bye!

New years new start - Tasker: Monitor control

Happy new years to everyone!

I realise I haven't posted in a while, so part of my new years resolution is to provide weekly content to you, on time and on mondays.

The content will include Tasker and Programming related materials.

Starting off, Tasker!

Now since I'm starting from scratch with Tasker I'll be building my tasks using all the devices I have. which as of writing this are

1. Desktop
2. Samsung Galaxy Note 3
3. Samsung Tab 3
4. Moto 360
5. Plantronic Voyager Legend

The focus will be to create somewhat of an assistant, using voice control and some background tasks.

A prerequisite for this blog is for you to have an understanding of Tasker, Eventghost and maybe some coding experience.

Though if you do not understand anything, please feel free to ask!

So for the first profile today will be a simple one.

Monitor Power Control.

Description:

This task allows you to turn on and off your monitor from your phone, using voice input, by saying "Turn monitor (state)"

Profile:

Event > Plugin > Autovoice > Recognized

Have your command as "turn monitor (?<state>on|off)

Make sure regex is ticked

Now press back to create the task

Task:

Plugins > Autoremote > Message

Configure the plugin to send the message to your Eventghost

and have the message set to "Monitor_%state"

Conclusion:

This will allow you to control your monitor from your phone, possible are turning off your monitor if you will be away for a while and forgot to turn it off to avoid screen burn.

Example:

Learning emotion!

As a project, I thought I try to see if my assistant could learn, or at least understand to some extent emotions.

I currently have 2 word arrays, Positive and Negative.
When the user inputs a response to "How do you feel?" the input will be scanned with the two word lists.

For each Positive word found, a variable (emotion) is + 1, and for every Negative word found, its -1.

I've used this method to get a scale of -10 to +10. of which I can form a response depending on the number.

I've been trying to work on responses for each number, but giving an appropriate response for the scale can be a challenge.

But using this, means that my assistant could learn what mood I'm in depending on the input I give.

Further improvements could be multiple random responses depending on the scale.

This is to say each scale will have multiple possible responses but it'll give a random response.

What responses do you think could be appropriate?

First post: A.L.I.C.E

As my first post, I'll be writing about my personal project. A.L.I.C.E.

Now I know what you're thinking. Who is A.L.I.C.E?

Well it's not exactly a who, more of a what, and it's a project to code myself a personal assistant. I've used personal assistant apps on my phone and I've liked how they worked. But I've always wanted to try and create my own assistant from scratch so I'm teaching myself C++ and along the journey, I'll be using things that I've learnt in A.L.I.C.E.

Now lets get a few questions sorted (I know you've been waning to ask these)

1. What does A.L.I.C.E stand for?
• Well truthfully its not set in stone, I sometimes change it. As of this time, its ' A Little Intelligent Computing Entity ' But don't expect it to keep
2. Why are you doing this?
• As I said, I'm trying to teach myself programming, through c++. And one thing I thought would be good to keep motivation is to have a small project along side it. So when I learn new things I can implement them to A.L.I.C.E
3. What is your goal?
• Well my goal is to learn C++ and get a developer job. But with A.L.I.C.E, it's to create a personal assistant, operate within windows, maybe I'll port it to other systems, but that means learning new code.

The current state of A.L.I.C.E is really REALLY simple.

As you can see, its just a simple console interface (for now).

Future plans involve a few ideas but at the moment I'm trying to sort out Text to Speech, What's the point having an assistant who can't speak.

What do you think? Do you have any ideas? Do you think its too blue?

Side note: It's been a while since I've done blogging, so give me a few posts to get into the whole grove :)